The voice talked.
Aether, it explained, was not simply this world's goddess. Aether expanded — had always expanded, across worlds, across civilizations, seeding the System World like a parasite into culture after culture, converting them, absorbing them, adding their populations and belief and resources to an architecture that grew larger with each absorption. The System World wasn't a framework for adventure and progression. It was a conversion mechanism. Every person who leveled up, every skill assigned, every monster killed through the System's infrastructure was feeding something larger than the infrastructure itself.
The maker of the Anti-System had watched this happen.
